Marsters' dream, however, is centered around a little play written by a fellow named Shakespeare. "Macbeth. That's what I want to do. I want to get like five to eight million dollars and film Macbeth. I've done the role once and I've been in another production of it and nobody's made a good movie out of that [role] in 25 years. It's the greatest."

What is it about Macbeth that enables Marsters to quote from the play on demand? "In the speech of 'Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow', [it's] understanding that he's not whining and he's not sad, he's absolutely without emotion. When you see how low that the main title character sinks, that speech is all about that life is absolutely worthless, meaningless. There's no meaning at all. And then you understand that he's not whining about anything, he's just commenting on the way he sees life. He starts as such an energetic and life-filled character, and then he journeys and comes to that point at which he's no longer the hero, he's the villain. In order to commit the crimes he did, he had to cut out his own soul... he had to numb himself as so many murderers do. It's weird that Shakespeare knew that. But that was the ultimate price. For committing the acts that he did out of ambition was that he had to turn off his own connection to real life to protect himself. So when his wife dies, when he hears that his wife is dead, he's just like 'Well, she should have died tomorrow, we would have had more time for that tomorrow.' That's probably my favorite part of the play because actually it requires no acting at all. You get to that and it's the big abyss of the role, you just have to sit there and say it. You just say it very simply. It's so disturbing."

At the weekend-long convention, Marsters answered questions about the show, accepted gifts ("I'm a Spike Girl," he says with amusement when given an honorary membership to the online fan club), signed autographs for three hours and chatted with each person. Friendly, personable and perfectly down-to-earth, he showed the fans that his jump to fame has only given him a home on the beach.

"Five hundred people are trying to make one guy look cool. Whoever they decide that they want to make look cool, they'll do it, and I'm very lucky that they decided to make me that guy," Marsters says. "'Cause why didn't Spike get killed, you know? His hair worked and his coat worked. Whatever the heck that it was. The accent and the coat or whatever. If they would have costumed me a different way, they might've just killed me, really. They had like a see-through plastic shirt and stuff like it because it was supposed to be punk, it was like glam-punk. If they would have done that, people would have hated me, and I would have died. I got so lucky."

Actually, it is Marsters' exceptional ability that allows him to take a two-dimensional character on paper and make the audience believe in a cocky, emotional, slightly-hyper vampire named Spike.

Well, that and inheriting his mother's cheekbones.

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